<\/p>\n
Anxiety over ICE<\/span> at the polls is a double-edged sword for the Trump administration: There\u2019s the fear that federal immigration agents will illegally descend on voters, and there\u2019s the threat that by boosting awareness of that fear, activists and journalists will help the federal government carry out the work of voter intimidation.<\/p>\n \u201cEven just rumors of [ICE at the polls] are going to spread fear. That\u2019s not what we want,\u201d said Daniela Padilla, deputy director at Texas for All, a statewide coalition of organizations working on democracy and justice issues. \u201cEven your reporting around, \u2018We\u2019re watching for ICE at the polls\u2019 \u2014 it could scare voters.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cThe biggest threat that we face in Texas this year is voter suppression.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/figure>\n In Texas, a 40 percent Latino state where a longtime Republican grip on power now finds itself in question, there are real concerns that Immigrations and Customs Enforcement agents could pop up in targeted communities to make people afraid to go out and vote on Tuesday. But while the possibility<\/a> of election interference<\/a> has been discussed<\/a> as one of several \u201cbig ticket items\u201d of this year\u2019s midterms, Padilla said, \u201cthe biggest threat that we face in Texas this year is voter suppression.\u201d<\/p>\n That suppression can take many forms. In Tarrant County, for example, where local officials closed 92 polling locations, reports from early voting indicated some election officials wrongly turned away eligible voters. More than fearing ICE would actually approach the polls, Padilla and several organizers working on election integrity and voting rights in Texas told The Intercept they were worried that journalists amplifying the Trump administration\u2019s stated plans to \u201csurround the polls<\/a>\u201d with ICE and federal agents could function as an inadvertent form of voter suppression.<\/p>\n Federal and state law prohibits federal immigration agents from being inside polling sites and bar any form of voter intimidation. Those laws haven\u2019t stopped the Trump administration<\/a> and its allies from threatening to deploy ICE and military personnel<\/a> around the country during elections. In August, the Department of Justice announced that it planned to send at least 1,000 federal monitors<\/a> to oversee midterm voting, prompting multiple states to assert they would not let them\u00a0 inside polling locations. As states like Maine prepared to respond<\/a> to the federal presence at the polls, the DOJ claimed<\/a> to Newsweek it \u201cnever said\u201d it would send federal law enforcement to the polls.<\/p>\n \u201cThe Trump administration has been spreading fear for months, refusing to say that they will not send ICE to the polls,\u201d said Emily French, policy director at Common Cause Texas. \u201cI think that the main function of this discussion around ICE at the polls from the Trump administration is scaring people into staying home on Election Day.\u201d<\/p>\n According to Brianna Brown, executive director of the Texas Organizing Project, disinformation efforts are a common voter-suppression tactic in Texas. \u201cSo we\u2019re trying to reassure people it\u2019s safe to vote,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Texas is home to one of the most dramatic potential Senate upsets in the country, with Democratic state Rep. James Talarico<\/a> leading in the polls over the state\u2019s scandal-plagued Republican attorney general Ken Paxton in a race that could see Texas end up with a Democratic senator for the first time since the \u201990s. And the 32 million-person state has enough<\/a> voter suppression strategies<\/a> even without ICE in the picture, Brown said, pointing to a 2021 bill<\/a> that banned drive-through voting, weakened protections for disabled voters, and gave more power to poll watchers appointed on behalf of a candidate or political party.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cTexas is just like a perfect storm,\u201d Brown said.\u00a0<\/p>\n When ICE showed up at a polling site in San Antonio in May \u2014 marking the first known case of ICE at the polls in the country during this year\u2019s primaries \u2014 the county sheriff kicked the agents out<\/a>. Even then, it did not appear that the federal agents were targeting someone in the process of voting; they had arrived at the scene shortly after state police, with whom they work closely, pulled someone over in the polling site\u2019s parking lot.<\/p>\n\n